


Are You Still Awake?

by somniumghost



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Angst, F/M, References to PTSD, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somniumghost/pseuds/somniumghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roomie gave me the prompt “what happened with Meryl after Shadow Moses?” In the canon ending, Snake and Meryl ride off into the sunset together; Kojima never intended to make MGS2, so there’s a universe out there where there’s a hopeful ending, but make MGS2 he did. By MGS2 Solid and Meryl have gone their separate ways. I always wondered how that happened, so I used the prompt to write this.</p>
<p>Originally posted on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Are You Still Awake?

**Author's Note:**

> It starts out using the dialogue from the ending cutscene, which is clunky as hell, but hopefully it flows more smoothly after that.

“Maybe it’s time I lived for someone else,” he’d said. Her throat felt tight.

“Someone else?” She had asked, seated behind him on the old snowmobile, wondering.

“Yeah.” He’d turned in the seat, then, meeting her eyes. “Someone like you.”

She had swallowed.

“Maybe that’s the real way to live,” he’d continued, and the feel of his eyes on her face had made her feel like he was waiting for her to catch him. He’d looked different somehow, and she’d realized that all the hard, guarded lines of his face had relaxed into something else, something vulnerable.

He had held her gaze for a moment before averting his eyes, an action that would have seemed almost sheepish on anyone else, and faced forward, placing his hands on the front of the snowmobile. He cared about her. She didn’t know what to say.

She’d leaned back and taken a deep breath. “So, where to, Snake?”

“David,” he’d corrected her, friendly and not harsh. “My name is David.”

“Okay.” _What a normal name_ , she’d thought, amusement in her voice. _It almost suits him_. “So where to, Dave?”

“Hm. I think it’s time we look for a new path in life.” He’d sounded so casual, but the words were loaded.

“A new path?”

“A new purpose.” He’d sounded so resolute.

“Will we find it?”

“We’ll find it. I know we’ll find it.”

He’d sounded so sure. Just 18, Meryl felt all the painful naivety of her life up to that point as she listened to him. His voice was sure, but there was something else in it; pain, perhaps. Determination, but daunted by… something.

“What are those?” She’d asked, pointing to the animals on the horizon.

“Caribou. To the Aleutians, the caribou are a symbol of life. It’ll be spring here soon.”

“For us, too.” Her voice had been soft, and his shoulders had relaxed.

“Yeah. Spring brings new life to everything. It’s time for hope. I’ve lived here a long time; Alaska has never looked more beautiful. The sky, the sea, the caribou…” He met her gaze one more time. “And most of all: you.”

Meryl had gripped him tighter, then. It’s a heady thing, to be so young, to be trying so hard to learn and grow, and find that a man of 33, a man who has suffered, has chosen to make you the most important thing in his life. David had looked at Meryl, and saw her as beautiful in a way that he saw nothing else in his life; there was something special about her, and he was prepared to give everything he could to her. It was in his eyes. How does a woman barely an adult respond to something so… heavy?

“I think… I’m gonna like this new life,” she’d said, giving him a squeeze. He’d smiled as he started up the snowmobile.

“Come on. Let’s enjoy life.”

In the following year, that memory had played over and over in her mind, every detail of it branded into her memory, almost shocking in its clarity. He’d been so resolute, so certain that they’d find some purpose together; some days it had even been true. “I was alive on the battlefield,” he’d say as they worked together in the kennels, feeding their dogs, “but I was more alive waking up with you this morning.”

His smile was so honest, his eyes so gentle, all she could do was grin. She knew how hard it was for him to say such things, and she always rewarded him with affection, even if she didn’t know what to say herself. A veteran and a rookie, a couple of soldiers who communicated better in the language of weapons than words, learning how to build a life together. It was beautiful, it was good, and for a while, Meryl had believed that it could be their life.

There were always the nightmares, of course; neither of them could get away from the nightmares. Some nights David would jerk awake, CQCing a pillow to the opposite side of the room; he wouldn’t be content until he’d checked the perimeter of their cabin, sometimes preparing the dogs and the sled to take them to another shelter. He was deeply conscious of their status, of the danger, and after they’d ensured their safety, Meryl would take him into her arms and soothe him with wordless murmurs and gentle touches until his body relaxed into hers and sleep took him again.

Conversely, some nights she could still feel tingling echoes, Psycho Mantis’s tendrils coiling in her mind and making her body into a mockery of her feelings for him. Sometimes she’d be halfway through pulling out a sidearm and aiming it at the door in a rage at the violation before David gently plucked the gun from her grip and held her, making quiet promises about her safety and the sanctity of their modest home, wherever it was that night. She’d listen to his heartbeat and decide he was telling the truth. David was a lot of things, but he didn’t waste words: he meant everything he said. Maybe that was why they always danced around saying the infamous three words, even as they said and did everything else that meant them.

She knew the night everything was about to change. They’d arrived at another shelter somewhere in Alaska, and she’d planted a sleepy kiss on his lips before falling into the small bed, eagerly seeking rest, trusting him to finish the tasks of settling in as she curled up on her side and succumbed to exhaustion.

She was almost asleep, but not quite when she felt the weight of his body sink into the bed behind her. The warmth of his body relaxed her, and she was barely aware of the rough callouses gently gliding along her skin as his fingertips traced her shoulders.

“Meryl,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Are you still awake?”

She wasn’t awake enough to answer him, his words barely hovering on the edge of her consciousness as it was, but something in his voice reminded her of that conversation as they fled Shadow Moses.

“That’s a no. Good.” He let out a long breath, and her sleep-muddled mind tried to analyze his words to no avail.

“Meryl, you deserve more than I can give you. Living like this, always on the run… it’s me they really want. You could have a real life, and I… can’t give you one.” His lips barely graced the back of her neck. “I love you. You can go and enjoy life the way we’re meant to. I’m just… an old killer.”

“No,” she breathed, but he didn’t hear her. Her dreams were a sea of gray, sharp edges and sudden sounds as she struggled to pull herself into waking and failed.

The next day they had talked; he’d been in contact with Dr. Emmerich. They were going to find and eliminate all the remaining Metal Gears. She asked him why; he’d said it needed to be done, for the world, but he was dodging the question and they both knew it.

“Fine. Why _you_ , then?”

“I’ve spent my whole life fighting, Meryl. It’s all I know how to do.”

They argued. Nothing came of it. He wouldn’t say the words he’d whispered to her sleeping figure. She couldn’t bring herself to say it first. Instead she called him selfish, knowing it for a lie, and cried. He urged her to find their new purpose. She told him she already had, and he seemed relieved. He didn’t get it. She didn’t try to explain. She knew he wouldn’t hear her if she did.

Time passed. They made their arrangements. They were going their separate ways the following day.

Meryl had always hated goodbyes.

She regarded his sleeping figure, this man she’d loved for a year and some months, and sat down on the bed beside him. The fatigues she shouldn’t be wearing itched in a way that reminded her of his stubble in the morning. The pillow where she should have been laying was soft, reminding her of his skin as he soothed away her nightmares. His breath was warm, like the moments they’d shared, and she traced his bare shoulder with her fingertips.

“David. Are you still awake?”

He snoozed on.

“That’s a no. Good.” She let out a long sigh. “I hate that you’re doing this. I get it, but I hate it. Haven’t you done enough? And aren’t… am I not enough to keep you here?” She grit her teeth. She sounded so weak, and she hated that, too. “I can’t… I can’t stay here, to say goodbye to you and see that awful look in your eyes in the daylight. You always look at me like I’m this, this special, wonderful thing, that you don’t deserve, that you can’t keep. It kills me to see that in you, and I’m not letting you do that to yourself anymore. So I’m leaving.” Her jaw set. Resolute.

She leaned down and kissed his forehead. “I love you, Dave. You were never just an old killer. I know you feel like you have to do this, but I wish you didn’t. Go and be the hero you’ve always been.” A small smile slid onto her face. She ignored the tears gathering. “I still believe in you. I’ll be fighting, too.”

She gave his cheek once last brush with her thumb before snatching up her pack. “Goodbye, Snake. I’m leaving… now.”

The door closed behind her. David’s fingertips twitched. “No,” he breathed, but did not wake.

Meryl saw him again nine years later. It killed something inside her. It wasn’t because he had aged so much without her, or because he had suffered so much without her, though that hurt, too.

No, it was because that look in his eyes was exactly the same.


End file.
